People of Grit: Week 4

Good morning, Welcome to Church of the Crossing.

My name is James, and we are in our fourth

week of our People Grit series. And one thing that

we want to do is have a culture around here

where we, in our faith and in our practices we

are people of grit. And what do people of grit do?

They do what it takes to get what it matters done. Now,

so let me just give you a little sidebard, a

little story how that worked out in our ministry.

In the last couple of weeks, we had a couple

just a.

Few hours before our Monday night study groups.

We've had about one hundred and fifty people showing up,

and all of a sudden, our water went out.

And so, you know, the staff gets together, like, should

we cancel because you know, we can't use toilets, we

don't have water and all this other stuff. I said, well,

you know, I just preached on being people of grit,

so we.

Can't believe we're gonna just water.

And so I said, no, we're gonna have in the

staff all green. Yeah, let's let's have it tonight. So

the solution that the staff came up with first was

that we were going to buy a bunch of bottles

of water and then just refill the back of the

toilets up ourselves.

And we were going to do a training at the

dinner that night to teach.

All the people in the church how to rework a toilet, okay,

And so that was actually our idea until the staff

went to some of the bathrooms and we couldn't figure

out how to do it, and then we said we

probably shouldn't do that, and so then.

Our only option was porta potties.

And I don't know if you've ever had a porta

potty emergency, but you know, I start calling around and

I get a hold of a porter potty place, and

I said, I have a porta potty emergency and I

need porta potties.

Here in the next hour and a half to two hours.

And so I explained what was going on, we worked

it out, and guess what, we got the porter potties.

And so the porter potties were almost here, and then

guess what, stinking water came back on. So now I

got four poor potties. I don't know what to do

with these poor to potties. But then I remember there's

another department in a church called the Early Childhood Center

and that they I thought that they would enjoy having

those out the office windows for the next week.

And so not only we people of Grip, but we

were people who like.

To laugh around here, and we had such good time. Now,

just so you know, if you're new here, that was

not part of my sermon. That was just an extra okay,

And so the sermons stuff is gonna begin.

Now, let's pray. God, We just thank you so much

for laughter.

We thank you so much that we could be a

part of a family and community.

Today we're gonna look at a passage of scripture that

should challenge every single one of us.

God, help us to forget all the.

What's going on outside of these doors and just really

come into your presence here in the next few moments.

In Jesus' name, we pray, Amen.

Isn't it great when people ridicule you, slander you, talk

behind your back, say some things about you, just because

God happens to be exalting you, blessing you, pouring out

his favor in your life.

And you've been faithful to.

God, you've been seeking God, and all of a sudden

God is blessing your life. And then what happens, The

people that we think will be the most encouraging often

tend to be the most discouraging in these moments.

Or what about.

You know, you become passionate about Christ and everyone can

see it, and you become more passionate, and as you're

growing and you start to annoy the people in you're

a small group because.

You're not a miserable Christian like them anymore, and.

They want you to get back to that because you know,

you're just too much Jesus right now. You know, sometimes

when we just have a little bit too much Jesus,

it can annoy those who have.

Their temperature set at medium Jesus. And when my best

budd and are about twenty.

Two years old, we were really excited about this mission

stuff we were doing in our town, hometown and Middletown.

We were onto these.

Projects and this housing development was probably the most economically

challenged one in our hometown, and we decided that we

were gonna spend a couple days a week there and

we got to know all these people and we had

all these outreaches dinners, and finally we started leading some

of them to Christ. And so there's this one lady

at the church. She was a retired missionary and how

can I some of her personality? She was grumpy and

so Wes for some unknown reason, walked up to her

and said, you're never gonna guess what all that Jesus

is doing. So he told her all the good stuff

that was happening, and her response, is I was sitting

next to West, was simply this, Oh that's great.

I'm glad you're doing all that.

But just so you know, as soon as you stop

giving them things and spending money on them, they'll just

go back.

To their old lifestyle.

And we were like, think you mean, lady for just

trashing the thing that we are most excited about in

our whole life, and Wes and I walked away like, man, jeez,

you know what. It was so discouraging, But at the

same moment we said, you know what, we don't care.

We're gonna do what we're gonna do because we believe

that this is what Jesus wants.

And here's what I.

Want to tell you today that as Christ exalts you,

as God raises you up, as you become more passionate,

don't be delusional and faith that everyone's gonna go awesome.

We love this.

We love seeing this passion your life. We love seeing

God's blessings your life. We love seeing all that God

is doing in your life. And by the way, that

not only in your Christian life, man your normal life.

People get jealous when they see other people blessed over.

In New Zealand, Australia and the Nine Kingdom, they called

this the poppy syndrome. That's where the poppy plant grows

up a little bit too high.

Someone will come and cut it down so it's not

above the other ones.

In America, over the years, we've called this the crab syndrome,

and that's where if you put a bunch of crabs

in a bucket and one it's about ready to cry

all the bucket, another crab will grab a.

Hold of that crab and pull it down and says, hey,

if we can't be free, you can't be free. And

there's just something about our culture.

When we see the hand of God on somebody, or

we see that somebody is really just going out there

for Jesus or going out there and God is blessing

them for some reason, there's always going to be those

people out there who are going to try to pull

you down as you pursue Christ with all of your life.

And it's evident at work in your family, in your life,

and when people see Jesus shining through you, do not

be surprised if you're gonna get cut down. I saw

this picture this week as I was thumbing through my Facebook,

and I thought, man, that is today's reality, isn't it.

So I plant something, somebody trying to do something good,

and people.

Are waiting just to cut it down.

Well, that leads us today to our very first point.

When God raises you up, expect people to tear you down.

Okay, people, that's just the truth. When God raises you up,

expect people to tear you down.

And that's exactly what we see happening in Daniel chapter six.

Today, let's look at this.

And we got a new king now, Darius, and it

says it pleased Darius, the new king, to appoint one

hundred and twenty say traps ask governors to rule throughout

the kingdom. And now they give a little structure information here.

It says, now with three administrators over them, one of them.

Was Daniel, who the book is named after.

And we've been studying throughout this time.

And Daniel verse three so distinguished himself among the administrators

in the say traps by his what exceptional qualities that

the king check this out, actually planned to set him

over the whole kingdom.

So here's Daniel.

He's a foreigner.

His family was brought over from exile from.

Jerusalem, and here he is. He is an outsider. And this,

by the way, never happens in history. The outsider never

gets to the point where they're gonna rule over the nation.

This is a big moment in history.

And let's see what happens here.

I says at this the administrators in the say traps

tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his

conduct of government affairs. So, in no other words, what

are they doing here. They're gonna try to dig up

some dirts. They're gonna find some things from his past,

and then they're gonna run some political.

Ads all over Babylon. Okay, and thank god, we don't

do anything like this today.

Right. Have you guys ever seen one of these where

they have a candidate versus another candidate and then they

go dig up stuff from their past and they put

it because because most of the stuff I see is say, hey,

that's a really nice person.

And you know, here's here's the things I stand for.

Here's what they stand for. Here, please make a logical decision.

No, here's what do we do.

We find pictures of people of doing stuff that they

did something stupid when they were a sophomore junior in

high school and say, can you believe they did that?

I'm like, yes, I do, because I was once a

sophomore or a junior and I did dumb things.

Not our kids.

Me.

Okay, so that's what they're doing.

They're doing the same thing we're doing today.

They decide, hey, we're gonna find some trash, we're gonna

dig it up, and we're gonna ruin his political future.

But they were unable to do so. Why they could

find no corruption in him? And also, here's the thing

we find out, because he was trustworthy and he was

neither corrupt nor negligent. In other words, he was not

only holy in a good man and a person of integrity.

But let me tell you something about Daniel. He says

he wasn't negligent.

In other words, Daniel did his job, and he did

his job well. And so what do we see here

says Finally, these men said, you know, we're never gonna

find any basis for charges against this man Daniel, unless

it has something to do with the law of his God.

In other words, the only way we're gonna be able

to trip him up is to use his own religion

against him. I don't think that's crazy, because.

That's happening all over our country right now.

Those of you, if you stand up for your faith

at work, you stand out for Jesus, trust me, someone's

gonna use your faith against you getting a promotion, are

you taking some more steps in your business? That's where

we're at as a nation. Now, Okay, So what we

see here is they're saying, all right, we're gonna use

his religion to.

Trip him up.

Now Here's.

Here's one of the problems that I've seen as a pastor,

and I.

Believe that this is very true of Western Christianity.

Talking about us.

Western Christians see so often we believe that if I

follow God, if I do my Bible studies, if I

eat three meals a day, I sleep eight hours a night,

if I iron my clothes and I love Jesus, I

go to Sunday school, make sure my kids are there

on time. If I do all these things, if I

do all these religious things right, I do all these

human things right, then, because I'm doing all of these

things right, then therefore I'm not gonna have any trouble.

My life is gonna be perfect. All my vehicles are

gonna run great, everybody's gonna love me, all my bills

are gonna be paid.

I'm gonna have money left over and have good health,

good luck.

And simply my life's gonna be awesome if I just.

Follow Jesus with passion and do what's right.

Let me tell you something that is delusional. That is delusional, Okay,

I would love I would love to.

Tell you if you do everything right, God's gonna do

nothing but bless your life. But then you'll be watching

me on television out here, okay, because I'd be lying

to you when I was twenty five. I have been

in ministry for a little over five years full time now,

and uh, I.

Was that boy. You would consider a SIS A church

of this church in Cincinnati area. We've shared some pastors.

A lot of members at that church went to college,

and Anderson went here during college. We've uh even our

buildings are shaped very similar, and it's kind of like

a church is a crossing two point.

Zero over there.

And uh so it was a church was one hundred

years old. It was a pretty big deal when I

got asked to be an associate pastor. Is a to

be the youngest associate pastor in that church's history, and

and you know, I was like, Wow, I can't believe

I'm gonna get to preach.

To adults, not just kids.

I couldn't believe.

I was excited.

So they announced it to the church and the next thing,

you know, comes the emails and all this stuff saying

all the reasons why James should not be the associate pastor.

Now, interestingly, none of them came from the church.

They all came from the staff. Not the staff that

was younger, but the staff that was older.

And they were very upset.

That a twenty five year old was going to be

promoted in their eyes, and they felt like it was

embarrassing to them. And so my pastor even showed me

the emails and said, hey, you want to be a

senior pastor someday, here's what it's like to lead a staff.

You try to do the right thing in hers, You know,

and he showed me all this.

But then we get some elders of ballad and are like, hey,

what are you gonna do here?

What we're gonna do?

We just can't have this staff all split up like this,

And so someone came up the idea to call everyone.

An associate pastor.

And so the next thing you know, you have the

associate pastor of this, the associated pastor of that, the

associated pastor of this, the associated pastor that, and then

I'm just simply the associate pastor of nothing.

So it was a great promotion. But here's the thing.

When God exalts you, when God lifts you up, just

don't be shocked. Look at this next quote here. If

you're not ready to face opposition for your obedience to God,

then you're just not ready to be used by God.

I'm going to say that again.

If you're not ready to face opposition for your obedience

to God, you are not ready to be used by God.

Now I have to remind myself.

I don't like this truth, but in reality we see

it all over the places. If I remember a guy

named Tony Dungee, that his name sound familiar around here.

Well after his coaching career. He became a correspondent for

NBC and he was very vocal.

About how he believed that God had.

Him in this position so that he can allow other athletes,

Christian athletes to express their faith. He said, that's why

God exalted me, so I can exalt God and give

a voice to other athletes. Well, right before the Super Bowl,

a guy named Nick Foles with this year that the

Philadelphia Eagles were in the Super Bowl. He went from

being a backup quarterback to the starting quarterback.

Of the Super Bowl. And here's what he said before.

With an interview with Tony Dungee, he says, I believe

that God put me here. I'm supposed to be here,

and I believe I'm gonna have a gay because all

of this is all of this is God's plan to

bring him glory.

So what did Tony Dungee do? Tony Dungee reports that

over live television. What do you think happened? Man? He

got bashed like crazy all of a sudden.

He's having atheist critics, critics, secularists, everybody just push him back.

And I love this about Tony Dungee, suys, I don't care.

This is why God has me here. God has me

here so that I can give a voice to these people.

See here's the thing that when God exalts you, you're

gonna face opposition.

And when we stand up for God, we're gonna face opposition.

See Daniel is standing out, he's standing up, he's standing strong,

and sure enough there's opposition against him.

And and some of you may be experiencing that right now.

Think about the two other administrators're like, we gotta stop this.

We gotta stop this.

So, if you read the story, basically they buttered up

the king. I don't know what happened in that conversation.

I don't know if they went to the king and said, King,

oh man, you are looking fent. You're looking good in

that room. Man, you are are those some air Jordan sandals?

You are just wow, King, you were looking awesome.

And so they convince the king.

To come up with this law that basically anyone who

worshiped any god besides King Darius for the next thirty days,

they would be thrown into the lions. Then, now here's

what you gotta understand. Darius was like many other kings.

He's vulnerable to pride.

Always trying to deify himself. Darius knows he's not a king.

But here's the thing about kings.

Back then, they'd love to be treated as gods.

And so King Darius is okay, all right, I'll sign it.

And anyone who works up to any other god besides

me in the next thirty days, they'll be thrown into

a pit of angry lions.

Now here's what the messed up thing is. Here's the

sinister part of this. The administrators understood, understood.

A law called the law of the Meads and Persians,

and sometimes people still bring that up in track talks.

Back then, any law.

That the king sign in place, because they believe that

the king was infallible.

Even the king could not reverse the law.

So they knew that Daniel was going to pray, Daniel

was going to continue to worship God, and even though

Darius liked him and wanted him to exalt him to

his top man, they knew that Darius.

Could not go back and change this.

Now here's the thing I want you to understand. Remember

when we think about Daniel alliance Den, do you have

this image some of you?

Did anybody learn Daniel.

And Daniel alliance Den on flannel graphs? Anybody, let's go

back that far. Or are this the.

Screens, you know, the projector we think about these cute

little lions and Daniel. Do you remember Daniel's standing Look

this beautiful robe looking all awesome in alliance.

Then we think of Daniel the Sunday school lesson. Oh

this was her life.

This man was making a decision that was costing his life.

He had three options.

Number One, he.

Could stop praying for a month.

He could say, God, for eighty years, I pray to you,

what's one month between us two?

All right, let's just take a one month.

Secondly, he could think it until he made it, so

he could do that thing.

You know.

You know how people do this in meetings where they

have their eyes closed and they're like, hey, are you sleeping?

Like, no, no, no.

But he could do the same thing with prayer, you know,

where he would be praying and they say, hey, are

you praying?

No?

No, no, no, I was just taking a nap.

It's kind of like the opposite of what people do

in church, you know how like we find somebody if

their eyes.

Closed in church and we say are you sleeping?

He goes, oh, no, I'm praying.

Yeah, I'm praying for a great sermon, not anyways.

So he could have done that. But what does Daniel do?

And he said, he's gonna continue on with what he's

always been doing. He's gonna stand strong. Now what built

up that audacious faith, Well, it brings us to our

next point. Kneeling to pray is what gives you strength

to stand. Kneeling to pray is what's gonna give you

strength to stand in.

The tough moments of your life.

And the tough moments and every single one of us

are gonna have him, But it's your prayer.

Life is not gonna give you the strength to stand.

Let's look at this, says now verse ten. When Daniel

learned that the decree had been published, he went home

to his upstairs room where the windows opened towards Jerusalem,

and three times a day he got down on his

knees and he prayed, given thanks to his God, just

as he had done before.

And see, Daniel did not go panic. He didn't go, oh, hold,

what am I gonna do? No, no, no, no no.

Daniel just continued to do what he did. He continued

to pray.

See, our first response should never be to panic, but

always to pray, and you ever.

Knows what we do.

And in our American Christian culture nowadays, we kind of

give ourselves away in our laying, which we have a

big problem, and then we try to get with other

people to try to fix it or try.

To fix ourselves. And after we've done everything in our.

Mind, we've looked at up YouTube videos, we've learned, we've.

Tried everything we can to fix our problem, what do

we say? In our culture?

We say, well, I guess the only thing we could

do now is pray. And God's up in heaven, like geez,

I'm so sorry. The only thing you could do now

is pray too. I don't know the creator of the universe,

a sustainer of life, the one who created the atom.

You know, but you know, and that's what we do.

No, no, no, no, we get to pray. That should

be our attitude. Our attitude is that we get to pray.

You know, this last four weeks, every Sunday morning, for

some reason, our air condition works great.

All week Sunday morning, every week.

This last month, our air conditioner has one out, you know,

And I'm like trying not to spiritualize it like a

spiritual warfare or something like that, but for a guy

who sweats, I think it's a devil. But anyways, and

so Clint texts me this morning, real early, and I

wake up.

My first text is the air is not working again.

And my first thought was called, Bob, you know our

facilities guy. But then it hit me, No, we need

to pray.

We need to pray, because I knew I was preaching

a sermon, and so I shot back, I said, let's pray.

Let's just pray, because man, we're four weeks in a

row of this jump. And of course we did call

all they came and what would you do.

Ten minutes before service the air came back on, and

I thought, you know what, I should just pray first

more often.

And it's just little silly stuff like that.

But here's what we do.

We tend to do everything else.

But pray first. No, we get to pray.

That should be the attitude, you know, because we get

to go a petition to God of the universe, the

one who hears the cry of the humble, the one

who you know is created, he who want who.

Cares about the intimate needs of our life. We get

to pray to him.

He delights in answering our prayers, we can pray. Andrew

mentioned earlier that you know, this Wednesday night, we're gonna

get together and we're gonna pray for those who have cancer.

We've seen a lot of people miraculously healed of cancer,

but we also got a lot of people in our

community and in our church who have cancer. And so

some of our prayer leaders decided, hey, we should have

a prayer and I and pray for those of cancer.

And so our attitude people of Grit is not like,

oh no, this is horrible, but hey, we get to pray.

Let's go to battle, and that's what we do.

That's what people grit. No, we get to pray.

Know something else though, that Daniel diedn't go and announce

his prayers and show off his Christianity to everybody.

He didn't go off and just you know, calls a

big scene.

No no, no, no, no, no.

Daniel just quietly did what he was supposed to do.

Why this isn't Daniel's first rodeo. Remember when Daniel was

eighteen years old and they took him from Jerusalem and

they said, hey, we're gonna change your name.

Hey, you can't eat this food anymore. Why, Because they

wanted to get rid of his religion.

They wanted to integrate him into the Babylonian culture and

for him to forget all about his Jewish God and

his jewishness.

And all those things. And when the big deal is

one of the reasons.

Why Daniel didn't want to eat that.

Food was that food would sacrificed to idols.

And so Daniel just said, no, I'm fine, I'm just

gonna eat this food over here. And Daniel throughout the

years quietly follow God.

He stayed faithful.

And here's the thing.

If he can make that bold of a decision at eighteen,

surely he can stand firm at eighteen.

And so what do we do.

We see Daniel goes back to his house and he

prays three times a day.

Now, what did Daniel not do. He didn't again open

up his window and shout, hey, I'm not gonna follow

King Darius.

I'm gonna seek the God of Heaven hashtag I'm so spiritual.

No, Danel just did. But he always did.

Why Because Daniel a while before this, made a predecision.

He decided, I need to pray three times a day.

A long time ago in his life. He decided way

before this.

Three he goes, I'm a child of God.

I'm gonna seek him, not just once a day, not

just twice a day, but I need God three times

a day.

So I'm gonna see it.

Seek him in the morning, I need him in the

middle of the afternoon. And also before I go to bed,

I need to hear his voice. I want to walk

in the spirit. I need his ongoing street. I want

to be in his presence. Therefore, I need God.

Three times a day. And see, Daniel knew.

What a lot of you in this room know. And

I know this for a fact. Those who walk with God,

God walks with them.

Those who walk with God, God walks with him through

the good times and the bad times.

And he knew it was a bad time.

So he's not gonna change plans because he knew that

God was gonna walk with him. Now, I don't know

about you, but let's just talk a little bit about

prayer time.

And here's the thing.

If you haven't just predecided your plan to get to

know God, chances are you're not going to get to

know God. And here's what I wanna say, with just

complete sincerity. If you don't have a prayer plan, You're

not gonna get to know God. You're not gonna know Jesus.

I've been a pastor for twenty five years. I have

heard thousands of sermons. Some of you have been following

Christ since you're a little toller and you've heard ten

thousand sermons. And here's the thing we I think we

can all agree. No one is gonna know Jesus more

without a deep prayer life. There's been books written, there's

been all kinds of things, but at the end of.

The day, if you walk with God, God walks with you.

So you've got to have a pre plan prayer time. See.

And also it's not only for you to grow in Christ,

but it's also for those moments so you're not shaking.

See see what life gives you more than you can stand?

What do you do?

You kneel down and pray. You have this prayer time,

You go to your God, you go before him and

God gives you.

His strength, so you have the courage to stand. And

let me tell you something, every single one of us,

if we follow Christ long enough, we will have to

stand up for something in our Christianity. It might be

a big world issue. It might be something in your workplace.

It might be something in.

Your friend's circle.

It might be that boyfriend or girlfriend you have to

break up with because they're wanting to do some things

that are just pleasing to God. It might be you

saying no to a business still that everyone else is

mad at you at work because you know it won't

honor God. And then what's going on in our mind

is am I gonna lose my friends? Am I gonna

lose my job, I'm gonna lose my new boyfriend? Or

what if I'm overlooked and I don't get that promotion.

And let me tell you something, some of you will

be overlooked for that promotion because of your faith in Christ.

Some companies don't want a Christian at the top. Some

of you, as you follow Christ and you stand for Christ,

you're not gonna get that sell. You're not gonna get

that deal. You're not gonna get that promotion.

Because of your faith in Christ.

And see, Daniel, you know could have asked, why why

will God rescue me from all this stuff right now?

And that's a fair question. That's a fair question.

And also the other question we ask because we know

at the end of the story. Why did God save

Daniel from the actual lions when a lot of other

people who were just as faithful and love God just

as much were.

Not saved from death or persecution?

Why is Daniel saved and some other people's.

Lives are destroyed when they follow and stand up for

Jesus Christ.

You want to know why?

Because life is not a Disney movie. It's real life.

But we gotta understand that God, his ways are higher

than our ways, His understanding more than our understanding.

God, at the end of day knows what he's doing.

See, you gotta remember that. Guys like get your Bomhoffer.

He was the first one that stand up to Hitler.

He even started the New Confessing Church and all throughout

the war he was the leader in Germany who stood

up for.

Christ against Hitler. How did it end for him?

He was hung?

What about Jim Elliam Jim Elliott went to go bring

Christianity to the lost tribes in Ecuador.

What happened to him?

Well, they landed the plane at him and four of

his friends were cut down, lost their lives. See, just

because you follow Jesus, just because you're a person who

worships every time the doors of it. Just because you

do the right things doesn't mean you're not gonna suffer.

And it also doesn't mean that God loves you any

luss And it also doesn't mean that God doesn't have

great plans still through you. Because let me tell you

here I am I'm talking about Dietrich bon Hoffer. Decades later,

I'm talking about Jim Elliott.

Their faith encourages us.

And here's what I need you to understand. You gotta

remember something that Daniel did not know at this point

in the story of his life that he was gonna

be our future.

Sunday School lesson Daniel.

Whenever they arrested him.

He didn't think, Oh, this is gonna be so good man.

The veggie tails are gonna write a song about me.

Oh this is gonna be great.

There's gonna be a little skits in children's church about me.

He didn't know all this. There's gonna be a diet

I'm famous for.

He didn't know all this stuff.

He didn't know all this. All he knew was he

was faithful to God and to him.

At that moment, it cost him his life, but he

was gonna be remain faithful to God.

That's it. Period of negotiation.

Even though it doesn't seem fear, God's been faithful to him,

He's gonna remain faithful to God. What about King Darius?

First of all, he's devastated. He liked Daniel, and so

what does King Darius do? First of all, that night,

he doesn't eat, he doesn't receive any entertainment.

He's devastating. He goes to his palace. He just praising

me fast as Daniel was putting the lions.

And now listen, as I ran across this quote this week,

and I absolutely love it. It says this that the lions,

the lions wanted to eat but couldn't.

The king could eat.

But what it was a strange time in Persia.

Now we don't know what happened down there. The text

says that the angel shut the mouth of the lions.

And I don't know what Daniel did. I don't know

Daniel worshiped all nine because he was so blown away

at meeting the Angel. I don't know if Daniel was

immature like me and kept kicking the lions on ha

ha ha ha hey Kenny, Kitty kick kich.

You know, I don't know but all we know is this, he.

Was saved, miraculously saved. And let's look it. The next day.

It says, at the first light of dawn, the King

got up and hurried to the lions dead. When he

came near to the den, he called it Daniel in

the English voice, Daniel, servant of the Living God. Had

your God, whom you served continually, been able to rescue.

You from the lions? In other words, is your God

powerful enough?

And he says, my God sent his angel and he

shut them out. For the lions, they have not heard.

Me, because I was found innocent in his sight, nor

have I ever done anything wrong before you, your majesty.

And the King was overjoyed, and he gave orders to

lift Daniel out of the den. And then when Daniel

was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him,

because he had trusted in his God, because he had

trusted in his God, because he had trusted in his God.

And God is faithful.

I love. I came across this this week when I

was reading it. The famous London preacher Charles had in Spurgeon.

He said this.

He said, it was a good thing that the lions

didn't try to eat Daniel because they wouldn't have enjoyed

him because he was half grit in the other half backbone.

Isn't that good?

I was like, thank you, Charles, that worked out perfect

for our sermon series, thank you one hundred and fifty

years ago.

He was half grit and half backbone.

I didn't say this at the other services, but I'll

say it here.

It was during the pandemic.

That I decided we needed to make different disciples. I

felt like all over the nation people were just so fickle,

so fickle and of things that in my heart of

hearts as a pastor, that I knew that this church

we could be different, That we could be a church

of grit, that we're not going to go up and

down with our emotions, but that we can be the

type of Christians that follow Jesus no matter what's going

on in the world, and that the world would not

affect our faith, but our faith would.

Affect the world. And that's what I'm talking about at

the end of the day.

When I'm talking about being people of grit, I'm talking

about being those people who know Jesus so much that

they don't care what's going on. They're going to follow him.

They're going to be faithful, even if it means we're

going to have some days in.

The lions den.

Now, the other guys, the Angel did not protect them.

For the other guys, it did not go good at all.

It did not go well for them at all. And

here's one thing I want to tell you at the

end of the day, even though you know we might

be overwhelmed, even though we have these decisions we have

to make to follow Christ and to pursue Christ above all,

here's one last thing I want you to know today

is simply this, when you do what's right, you can

always trust God with the results. You can always trust

God with the results. So here's what I encourage you

to do. Stay faithful, get to know Him, and you're

going to have times where you are going to face

opposition because of your faith in Christ.

Trust Him, even.

Though the immediate results might be something.

That kind of blows your life up a little bit.

Trust him. He's good, He's faithful.

I want to close out today simply by telling you

that you know I've shared before about how much counseling

has made a big deal, a big difference in my life.

But there was one counseling meeting I had a few

years ago that changed my attitude, my.

Preaching, my leadership style. It changed me.

It changed me, and my counselor just said, I want

you to answer these three questions honestly, and so I

want to share these three questions with you.

Who do you have your eyes on? Am I trying

to please people? Or please God?

Let me tell you something as somebody who is following Christ,

that if you're in any leadership, if you have ever exalted,

you will always have to make a decision between pleasing

people and pleasing God. You will always stand between those

two things. What please people are what I please God?

And lastly, do I care more about what people think

or what God thinks? And So I spent the last

couple of years, I've continually asked myself those questions, and

I've noticed it anytime I get off centered a little bit, I've.

Swayed from those a little bit. The one thing that

keeps my eyes on Jesus and keeps me on track

is my daily prayer time.

So how crazy would it be today if I tie

on Daniel praying three times a day?

And the application point was in prayer time? That would

be insane.

Right, It's like you knew this was come. Okay, no

surprise is here.

So the question I asked today is how are you

and your doing in your prayer time?

How are you doing? Are you growing in your relationship Christ?

Do you have a set prayer time? Because if you don't,

you're not gonna get to know God. And let me

tell you something I've learned about people of grit as

we close up today. People of grit care about what

God cares about. People grit know what God cares about.

Why because they have made it a priority to know God.

And also you actually have to know God to know

what God cares about.

So I am never gonna care about the things that

God cares about.

If I don't know God, because if I don't know God,

I won't know what he cares about.

And so prayer is a way of aligning ourselves to God.

So here's what I want to do.

We're gonna close out today very simple.

Those of you who have a set prayer.

Time and God's growing you, amen, I want you to

continue to pray for strength.

Those of you who do not have.

A set prayer time, I want you to grab your

phone or grab whatever, and we're just gonna take a

couple of minutes for you to actually make out your plan.

Let's just do it here before you leave today. I

want you to walk away with a plan to seek

the Lord.

Maybe it's five minutes every day, maybe it's ten minutes,

but whatever it is, are you connecting with God or

you getting to know God?

So let's just take some time to pray, and let's

just take some time to do some work.

God, we come to you and and we're kind of

changing the message from a sermon to a workshop. And

because uh, some things just don't happen whether we just

get to unless we get to work on it. And

so God, we just call on you right now. And God,

I pray that you will grab a hold of people's heart.

Not out of guilt, because I wouldn't pray to you

out of guilt. I'd eventually hate praying. We're not praying

to you out of guilt. We want to seek you

because you were good to us. And God, I think

everybody here wants they pray every single day to you.

But but but life gets in the way.

So we're asking for your mercy and we're asking for

your help to help us figure out.

How to get this down in our life.

So, God, with your grace and mercy, right now, will

you speak to everyone who who needs help getting launched today?

Will you show them the time that you would like

to meet with them?

So won't you just.

Take some time and talk to God about your meeting

place and your meeting time.

God, thank you for your.

Grace and mercy today, And God for those of us

who just made a commitment of when to meet you

and where to meet you, and when we mess up

and forget.

It like I do sometimes, God, I hope that we

just don't abeandon the whole.

Plan, but just I pray God you encourage him just

to start back the next day, cause you are a

God of grace, And we pray all this now and

the name of Jesus Amen.

The good thing is we have a uh a great

start over for you.

Uh. I don't know about you guys, but summer can

kind of mess up my spiritual plans. And uh so

we're all as we're all coming back in from summer.

Uh We're we're starting out this new series. So it's

a great series. It kick off having a daily prayer time,

being a small group coming to church each week.

I hope you make a commitment to that.

We're gonna close out the service today by taking some

time just to experience more of God's love. And this

is a time where as a family, we just minister

to minister to each.

Other, love on each other, encourage each other.

So whatever your prayer.

Need is some of your families, you might want to

pray over the beginning of the school year for your family.

For some of you, it might be sickness. For some

of you, might be the job. I don't know what

it is, but we want you to come forward and

we want to pray for you.

And so let's all go ahead and stand up as

the prayer partners come forward, and if you like to

come down and pray, we'd ask you just to step out.

Then come down the back.

Middle and you come up here and you can meet

with Jenny and she'll point you in the right direction.

And so let's continue to seek the Lord today.